


a new treasure island

by fingersfallingupwards



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Canon Universe, Denial, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Masturbation, Period-Typical Homophobia, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, that beautiful thing that is all freddie and rog
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:02:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27162889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fingersfallingupwards/pseuds/fingersfallingupwards
Summary: Despite the extra teeth and gumption, Freddie is perfectly normal. He has two names on his skin, his best friend and his romantic soul mate, a simple Roger and Mary. Nothing to misunderstand… right?
Relationships: Freddie Mercury/Roger Taylor, Mary Austin/Freddie Mercury
Comments: 38
Kudos: 45





	1. meeting the water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gratitude for my wonderful beta for editing and brit-picking! where would I be without you [johnjie](https://johnjie.tumblr.com/)?❣️

+

Despite the extra teeth and gumption, Freddie is a perfectly normal boy. He’s healthy, curious, and like everyone who reaches the age of twelve, has two mark _e_ s denoting his best friend and his soulmate. His mark _e_ s, much like himself, are something he wants to thrust under stage lights, and also pull inward like an inhaled breath at the end of a long phrase.

“Rojha and Mari,” his mother reads as she rotates his arm under the sun on his twelfth birthday. The first mark _e_ curves over the top of his bicep, and the second traces the jutting bone of his hip. The sloping Gujarati fails to bury the foreignness of the names among its loops and curves.

Her tone holds neither the reluctant amusement nor the vague disapproval it usually does. Stumped would be more accurate, though it isn’t uncommon he leaves her this way.

“Why not a good Parsi girl, Farrokh? Why must it always be complicated with you?” She sighs before proceeding to bless him and his mark _e_ s as ritual demands.

Freddie bites his lip, trying to hide a growing smile.

His mark _e_ s tell him a truth he already knows; he’s not long for these shores.

His family sends him back to boarding school, and he’s rather disappointed not to meet a _Roger._ The spelling comes to him through a dull history textbook and he traces the capital ‘R’ with a brimming, closed-mouth grin. Mari is soon sorted into Mary in his mind, more from wistfulness than fact. Mari is phonetically common in regions all over the world, but he wants all of the West, including their spelling. Even before his birthday, he splayed his fingers over the figures in western magazines and thumbed the edges of rock records with reverent hands.

He makes a band, dogged by the persistent drag of Cliff Richard, Little Richard, and above all, _Elvis._

It’s all he wants, to jerk his hips and elicit swells from crowds like they might wash over and consume him. Such charisma, such magnetism. Sometimes he lies awake at night, shaking and hot with the mere memory of how Elvis moves.

…If Freddie ever feels abnormal, an unnamable beat off from the rest of his classmates, a quick hand tracing _Mary_ on his hip is enough. There’s nothing unusual about him. The pull of Elvis is just proof of how good the King is.

And Freddie means to be better.

Kashmira gets her mark _e_ s one summer with their cousins, and Freddie has the pleasure of teaching her the Western spelling of the same name, Roger.

“You must be best friends with my intended!” she cries, elated.

“There must be a million Rogers in the world, at least,” Freddie shoots back, but even he finds the idea charming. “If it’s true, you’ve ruined it by having a Rachel on your body. Honestly, Kash, a Mary would have been so much more sensible.”

She throws her school hat at him.

“Homewrecker!” he chants back.

Upon welcoming them home, their mother raises a long eyebrow at the names. There’s a shrewd tilt to her gaze as she congratulates her daughter and arranges for the ceremony. She insists Freddie stay home over the break instead of returning to their cousins in Mumbai, throwing her hands in the air when he argues.

“You’ll have better luck getting water from a stone,” she says after a week of spats.

She means it too. Freddie spends a reluctant summer drawing and writing lyrics on spare scraps of paper and shoving them under his pillow like it might make his dreams come true faster.

“You know, Charlemagne did that with a Bible,” Kashmira says over breakfast one morning. “Because he was illiterate.”

“Your hair is asymmetrical,” Freddie counters, relishing the way she paws nervously at her fringe.

A raised shout at the servants precedes their mother running into the room at full tilt. “Stop eating and get your bags. Hurry, hurry. Get your bags.”

They startle, almost falling out of their chairs as they react to her unmetered tension.

“What? Why?” Freddie demands.

She doesn’t answer. “There’s a suitcase already packed in your room. Farrokh, grab your scraps, we’re leaving to meet Bomi at the embassy. We’re leaving Zanzibar.”

Upstairs Freddie finds a suitcase packed, exactly as she said it would be. 

He stares at her in their car, for once as slack-jawed as he makes her sometimes.

She raises a grim but satisfied eyebrow. “One child with foreign names is one thing, but two? No mother is foolish enough to overlook that.” She tucks Kashmira closer into her side, stroking her wrist with _Rachel_ slanting down the side.

“Where are we going?” Freddie asks, but there’s a thumping in his chest, an already knowing.

“England,” she says, mouth pursed. “London.”

On the tail end of persecution and spilled blood, they escape their homeland. The circumstances twist in his stomach, a stark and unforgettable lesson of how the tide of human opinion can turn quick and bloody for something as inescapable as difference.

But Freddie doesn’t mean for that to stop him. He’ll take as much of this country as dares to come his way.

Perhaps it’s the extra teeth, but his appetite is unmatched.

Settling in isn’t easy; his jacket is too short and out of fashion almost from the start. Worse still, he has to work in physical labor, which ruins any fine nail lacquer he saves up for. His parents watch his exploration of the culture with a wary eye but do not discourage his efforts to assimilate. This land is what they must work off for their future, even if their British-made home stands on pillars of Zoroastrianism.

The subject of mark _e_ s is more open in England. While it’s never tasteful to draw attention to them, there is a casual appreciation for and discussion of the topic, along with such delights as the English weather and football matches.

Here, Freddie is relieved to undermine expectations when classmates ask if he has a _Priya_ up his sleeve.

“No, just a Mary and Roger, I’m afraid,” he beams, teeth peeking out of closed lips. “As terribly boring as the rest of you.”

“Speak for yourself,” Chris grumbles. “I can’t make head or tails of this.” He flips his wrist to reveal _Yumi._ “Her name is Yummy.” he deadpans.

“Lots to look forward to!” Freddie quips, and grins at the chortles his daring draws out.

Completely foreign from his upbringing is the not inconsiderable contingent of British youths who feel the mark _e_ system is one they’re duty-bound to reject, in addition to short hair, the BBC, and war at large.

“It’s only because we’re _told_ that they’re our best friend and soulmate,” Tim Staffell argues. “A presumption that leads to the conclusion, not the other way around. The logic is completely faulty.”

In Zoroastrianism, it’s a crime to reject one’s mark _e,_ but that fact, along with the rest of his history before touching ground in Heathrow, Freddie keeps to himself.

Denise rolls her eyes. “And mark _e_ -magnetism? That’s a load too, then?”

Tim shrugs it off. “Mating instinct.”

“You always want to fuck your best friend?” Chris asks.

Freddie gives a dramatic shiver. “He’s been leading us on, building a harem.”

“Piss off!” Tim laughs. “Not one of you, not even with a twenty-foot pole.”

“That depends on what’s at the end of it, surely?”

The sketch pads are broken out to elucidate Tim’s twenty-foot-pole, end and all, and Freddie cackles with the rest, nerves dissipating with each instance of their unconscious acceptance.

Freddie does art and explores the city. He finds more ways to sink himself into its cracks, make it fit around his contours, despite his birthplace. He means to make London a coat for himself, a proper fitting one too, which he badly needs as it gets colder.

Every day he buzzes with faint awareness that it might be today that he meets his Mary, his Roger. The streets are topped to the brim with these common names; it’s only a matter of meeting the right one. He waits and waits.

One day, it’s _the_ day.

They’re on their way to see Tim’s band, Smile _._ Freddie trails along at the back, chatting with Denise and disagreeing utterly about her choice of shoes for the evening, when a slow electricity chases up his spine. It burns and glows where his head joins his neck, and he gasps. His arms are pushing forward almost without his realizing, shoving past their contingent and ahead of Tim leading the way, blind to the rest of the world.

Even facing away from Freddie, he still knows, can sense the stunning source of energy teeming at the other end of his unconscious reach. Slim, well-dressed in white, and nearly a height with him. He sees copper blonde hair cut to the chin prickle on a pale neck, watches a chest pulse with the force of a sudden breath.

Freddie’s speaking before they can turn around.

“Mary,” he gasps.

And then the brilliant, spiralling sensation crashes to a halt as Mary turns around and reveals herself otherwise.

“Not quite,” a raspy, masculine voice says, and Freddie feels himself go unflatteringly pink as his classmates collapse into paroxysms of laughter.

“Oh dear… I mean. You must be Roger.” The blood in his veins could freeze over the Atlantic, he feels so foolish and crass. It’s worse somehow, for how feminine Roger’s face is; prettiness cradles his soft cheeks, rounds out the attentive tilt of his blue eyes. This can’t be the first time it’s happened to him, but for his match to do it…

“I am,” he says, lips downturned. “And which one are you?”

Freddie feels his stomach drop further, the tittering behind him quelling into uncomfortable shifting. Surely they aren’t a mismatch? He was certain he’d seen Roger’s reaction, the way his body opened up to Freddie’s approach, but maybe—

“Farrokh,” he blurts, feeling a horrible yawning in his stomach as Roger squints further without understanding.

“Also goes by Freddie,” Tim supplies, putting a warm hand on Freddie’s shoulder.

Even though he’s meticulously analysing every minute shift of Roger’s face, Freddie still can’t make sense of the way it collapses into warmth and weary acceptance.

“You’re my Freddie then, I guess,” he says, tone muted by something Freddie can’t yet tell. It’s only an instant before he shakes it off, drawing up a cloak of sudden energy that both masks his emotions and dissembles the air of unease building among their audience.

“You should have said so!” Roger extends an easy hand. “I’ve nicknames.”

The pieces clatter into place and Freddie’s hand shoots forward, desperate to clutch at this offering and the shifted mood it’s brought about. He swallows at the warmth, the tingle of his fingertips as their skin buzzes with first touch. 

“That suits well, I really only use Freddie,” Freddie says, feeling his clammy skin press against callouses. “It’s practically legal now.”

He fidgets when his hand pulls back, still tingling. Is Roger like Tim? A nonbeliever in the system? Should Freddie play along if he is, and then charm him into acceptance without his being aware? He’ll do it. For this flying feeling, he’ll do it. Playing the game is nothing new to him and Freddie can connive with the best.

Roger smiles and puts his fears to rest, saying, “I have a set, but we could get drinks after? Chat, if you like?”

Freddie would like. Desperately. He’s realizing that his Roger is Roger the drummer, the one who’s “quite brilliant, but could argue Herod into acquittal,” according to Tim. He wishes he’d paid more attention.

He nods, perhaps too quickly, and then regains himself. “I’d like to make up for my horrid mistake,” he says. “Though, it’s entirely Tim’s fault, serving wine before his show, trying to lube up the audience.”

“The wetter the better,” Tim quips, dry.

“The harem is no laugh,” Chris chimes in.

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but I really do need to tune the Red Special.”

Freddie comes to realize that there are, in fact, more people in the world than just his limited vision, which remains firmly on Roger with only occasional flicks elsewhere.

The mass of thick curls looming so far above him gives him a brief fright and sets the others laughing again, even as their owner, the guitarist, scowls and whinges about getting to the stage. Freddie doesn’t mind being the source of the joke, not when Roger chuckles, a high easy noise.

“Enjoy the show,” Roger says, as though there is any way Freddie wouldn’t.

Under the lights, Roger is somehow more captivating. He keeps an easy time, throwing in drum rolls and a soaring falsetto to round their sets sound. Peripherally, Freddie knows that the guitarist is absolutely brilliant as well, and that Tim is a powerful singer, but he’s still sparking on the edges of sudden kismet, interlocking destiny. No one really teases Freddie for his unwavering attention on the drummer. Mark _e_ -magnetism is more than it’s cracked up to be.

So fitting, part of him thinks, with growing excitement, that Roger should be a musician when Freddie still sleeps with musical passages under his pillow. It must mean something, maybe even a step towards the monuments unbuilt yet looming in his head.

After the set, the sweatier trio rejoins the group. Their guitarist is finally introduced as Brian, and he unwinds into only pseudo-seriousness with the application of beer.

“And this, as you know, is Mary!” Tim says, hand around Roger’s shoulders. Freddie buries his head in his hands as Roger shoves Tim off. Peeking through fingers, Freddie sees a sudden lightness take Roger’s expression and he looks at Freddie with intent.

The expression lingers even as they get their pints and slouch against the bar, just a little away from the others, an unasked privacy. Roger eases in, breaking Freddie’s nervousness with a question about the performance. He unlocks all of Freddie’s tumbling ideas for improving their stage presence. When Freddie reaches matching white satin clothes, he chuckles.

“You know, you’re not supposed to give a damn about your appearance on stage, just sway and look at the floor.” Roger’s nose crinkles. “But I think that’s rubbish, myself.”

“Yes, you’ve got to make a show of it! Give them what they’re paying for.” His eyes flicker over Roger’s clothes, not quite trendy, but several degrees above Tim’s jeans and Brian’s button-up. “At least one of you knows a thing about stage presence, right dear?”

Something in the appellation changes Roger’s expression. He fingers the condensation around his cup, and Freddie notices that if he’d looked at Roger’s hands first, he never would have confused him for a girl. Not when they were so broad and calloused, strong veins tracing blue lines to his forearms.

“What you said before, about… You’ve got a Mary then, have you?”

Freddie startles from his abstraction and answers thoughtlessly. “Yes. Haven’t met her yet. Saving the soulmate for last, I suppose.”

All at once Roger seems at ease, whatever lingering reservations melting away as Freddie is greeted with a stunning, bright smile.

“That’s all right then. We can make do in the interim, us best mates.”

Freddie’s heart thumps, shudders. Yes, he’s ready for Roger, to have someone so talented and clever in his corner, to be close to someone. He thinks he’s waited forever for this.

He forgets to even ask about Roger’s second name.

Or maybe it’s just politeness. Nicknames, Roger said, shrugging off the aberration in his DNA. Freddie knows people can inherit the trait from one or both of their parents, but he also knows it happens when there’s a _mis_ match. When, against all rules of nature, soulmates are wretchedly unsuited. Any children born from this can have a whole number of mutations, nicknames for mark _es_ being just one.

Like so many things, the blame for nature’s caprice somehow falls on the undeserving. There had been a child born in his town who was disowned for the trait, and worse, there were small sects around the world who felt children of such unions were better off dead. It’s an illegal practice in Britain, but the stigma still staggers Freddie, who understands intimately, and vows never to ask. 

He hopes to spare Roger the pain, whatever it might be.

It’s easy not to dwell on pain, because Roger and Freddie really are best mates in all the best ways. They click along each complicated turn of personality, slotting into each divot, bypassing barriers so effortlessly it feels like falling. Where they don’t match, Freddie finds himself growing into the space.

Roger is brash and easy with people, and this magnetism draws out the best and most fearless parts of Freddie. He can be grandiose and obscene and utterly wild, and draw from Roger only smiles and laughter that’s always warm, never demeaning. They enable each other’s insanity, building walls of in-jokes to spin even Tim’s head. Freddie means to be Elvis, and Roger John Bonham; they take each other perfectly seriously since no one else seems in a hurry to.

Roger takes from Freddie too, catching onto his daring fashion and adopting it for himself. While always fastidious with his looks, he watches with careful eyes as Freddie primps him in the mirror, lays colorful satin over his body at stores and hums. 

“Daring one, aren’t you?” Roger says, catching eyes in the mirror. A subtle acknowledgment of their toeing unspoken lines.

Freddie bites his lip, smiles. “How dull it should be if I weren’t.”

“Brave,” Roger murmurs, almost thoughtful, and Freddie reaches for the brighter colors.

Weeks later Freddie catches Roger looking at himself in the mirror, seeming pleased, a new audacity tingling along the thread connecting them. In a week he blooms into a rainbow of colors and fabrics, hair skirting the edges of his shirts, smile more bold than shy as he sidles up beside Freddie.

Freddie only means to share this interest with him, and perhaps to selfishly create further camouflage for himself as he risks a little more camp, a little more silk, but in the end, he can’t tell which of them is holding the silkscreen to hide the other. They blur the lines between genders and society’s expectations in a game of chicken, giggling all the while at everyone out of the joke.

Hours are spent curled up discussing the rubbish put out in fashion magazines, and gossiping over drinks about girls and blokes alike in bars. Brian groans every time they team up on him, tugs at his collar and demands, “Why don’t you just open your own damn shop in Kensington and leave me well enough alone?!”

Their eyes meet, blue against brown, and it’s as good as a done deal. They try to do it logically and sell Freddie’s art which they can produce themselves, but the stream of income runs thin. Luckily, they stumble across a supplier of Edwardian clothes and drag bags and bags of it back to Freddie’s place to coo over and polish up.

It’s rubbish, but really it’s themselves they’re selling. Both of them are good at it, turning heads and changing minds with every look and word. They grin deviously at each other when they set up the mirrors to peek through to the changing room.

Wicked, boyish genius is something they each have in spades. Paired together, it’s a beautiful and reckless force. Freddie suspects it will take them far.

Collaborating musically takes even less thought, although Roger really makes Freddie work to prove the glaringly obvious.

“Come on, consider it,” Freddie pleads. _Wreckage_ has given up the ghost and he’s panting to be in front of the audience again.

“Sing-a-longs at parties is one thing, Fred, but I’m already in a band,” Roger rebuts.

Freddie waves his hand. “I mean, more long-term.”

“I thought you liked Smile _?_ ” Roger demands, expression growing cross.

“I love Smile,” Freddie corrects. “Though I still think there’s room for improvement.”

Roger remains unswayed. “Smile’s a power trio. Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience!”

Freddie throws his hands up. “But I’m a singer, and you’re a drummer. What else could it mean?!” he demands.

“Whatever it means, it doesn’t change the fact that you sing like a sheep,” Roger says, unapologetic.

Freddie’s mouth falls open, horrified. “I do not! It’s… It’s just vibrato, you uneducated swine!”

Roger raises a brow, knowing that with his choirboy past he is the only one of them who has any technical training to speak of. Rotten bastard.

Just for that, Freddie fucks off to the first band audition he finds in the morning paper.

(And if Roger is there the whole time, opening all of his doors and bowing and scraping just to bolster Freddie’s bravery and mood, well, it’s what’s expected of a best mate, isn’t it?)

Roger never really wants to embarrass anyone. It’s curious because Freddie sometimes enjoys embarrassing others even as he fears it being turned upon him, has honed walls of wit to prevent it from ever happening again. Roger’s only intention in life is to laugh. When Freddie garners that, after years of knowing his match and letting walls down, his desire to make others at ease makes sense. Getting used to this effect doesn’t mean Freddie stops marvelling at it. Roger pulls smile after smile from everyone, even the shy girl dragged along with the opening band. Forgotten wife or girlfriend, it doesn’t matter when Roger’s determined to have a good time tonight. He pulls everyone into his pursuit, smiling like the Pied Piper.

 _Peter Pan_ Brian sometimes calls him. Leader of all the lost boys and girls.

To speak and reach out so thoughtlessly without layers of protection… Freddie’s mind boggles. He aches to get closer to the prospect, even as his defenses rail against him. It’s not done, not for anyone except his matches, at least. He can’t spare the vulnerability he wants to share, not when he’s always felt like a creation held together by his own will and uncertain stitching. Gorgeous, and yet a mere thread pull away from unravelling if put in the wrong hands. He can’t risk it. He’s done too much to let himself fritter away.

So he leans into Roger’s willingness to extend, lingers in the open circle his arms make. It’s only right they complement one another, Freddie thinks, as he keeps his every card flush to his chest.

Matches must.

When their group of friends finally decides to go in on a house together, it only makes sense for the matches like Roger and Freddie and Pat and Denise to share the couple of rooms available. The rest get a scattershot of mattresses on the living room floor welcoming any crasher-by.

Living this close to another boy gives Freddie the echo of boarding school days, only without the press of a hierarchy on his sharp elbows. No one is trying to push him down, or even aside. Instead, Roger is languid water, a puddle on their shared bed that runs over him gently without any thought of erosion, thighs brushing in the morning, giggles as they untangle hair caught in a snarl.

He doesn’t mean to catch Roger having a wank, the same way he never meant to catch any other boy in boarding school. With the house shared, the only truly private places are the bedrooms or the bathroom during a shower, but with hot water limited Roger sometimes takes the few quiet nights to rid himself of stress.

Freddie is a light sleeper and he is wakened sometimes by the shuffling of fabric on the far side of the bed, the further tautness of their ill-fitting bedsheets. And then, sighs and hisses from pent up desire. Freddie never can stop himself from slitting his eyes. The lamppost outside casts an eerie orange light over Roger’s bare arm as he reaches down, palms himself. His muscles shift shadows as his wrist rotates in the spill of faint light. Eyebrows pull together on his face and the volume increases, slick sounding, even tempo’d in the way Roger does all things with a rhythm.

This close their bond hums with it, and Freddie breathes with each inch up the cliff face, the way the spiralling apex is different and yet similar to Freddie’s own understanding of pleasure. Roger groans wild and high as he comes, a long frantic twisting of his body as he rides the last of it out in staccato beats. The wetness glitters in dim light, and Freddie’s throat feels dry.

Through the whole journey of orgasm, Freddie feels as shivery as though it were himself, and some part of him aches to… to… he’s not sure he could put it into words, the way he wants to stand between Roger and the cliff face and put his open palm on Roger’s shoe to boost. He wants to be in the middle of the process, somehow, make himself entangled. It’s a passing whim, he thinks to himself, hand stroking low on his own hip; not near enough his own erection to satisfy, but where it needs to be for his own comfort.

Roger catches him taking care of his own needs once, despite being the soundest of sleepers. Freddie has taken advantage of the fact, perhaps gotten too casual with his ritual of putting on a show for himself. Freddie loves to perform, even to an audience of one, which is how he wakes Roger, with his hips jerking up and two fingers in his mouth.

Freddie nearly freezes; his rhythm falters. But Roger’s eyes merely scope his length, the depraved twisting of his legs, and then rest on his tongue poking through his fingers, and somehow Freddie’s writhing harder. Harsh, awful sounds he’d only seen in a cheap porno slip around his lips and into the air and when Roger inhales lowly with each piston of his hips, Freddie unravels.

Roger blinks at him, seemingly dazed by the sudden launch into peripheral orgasm. Freddie well knows the sensation. He’s coming down now, feeling anxious and shy at having been caught tugging himself off with such needless excess. His boarding school classmates were never sure whether to call him Bucky for his teeth or the Grand Arch-poof—

He strikes first. “Enjoy the show?” he asks, voice cool.

Roger meets eyes with him, pupils blown. He smiles slowly and self-deprecatingly. “I guess if you can’t watch your match, who can you watch?” and Freddie’s artifice dissolves like ice in the sun.

He forgets to pull his lips over his teeth when he laughs.

Freddie does notice that Roger never strips lower than a vest even on these, the hottest nights, but he thinks back to his promise not to pry. He understands not wanting to be over-examined without it being said. 

In actuality, there is very little he understands, and the fullness of that realization only comes months later, as they stumble into their shared room at Ferry Road, pissed silly.

Roger slips on their ancient rug, collapsing against the wall during his attempt to strip off his beer-stained satin shirt.

“Oh fuck,” he giggles, twisting around, his hair caught in lamé embroidery and sequins. He starts throwing himself off the walls blindly like a rubber ball, causing Freddie to nearly piss himself as he gasps out loud, honking snorts that only appear when he’s absolutely wasted.

“I’ve fucking lost it, I’m never getting out,” Roger giggles. “Forward my mail to this address.”

“Hold still,” Freddie orders, his own dizzy fingers tugging at Roger’s shirt. His graceless yanking makes Roger whine and cuss, so Freddie slows his work.

The long slope of Roger’s nude torso arrests Freddie’s wandering attention even as his hands unhook his greasy hair. Roger’s oddly small, despite being nowhere near as waifish as Brian. The barest softness enables the press of his thighs and hips against trousers, a slight extension of his stomach. Freddie has always found the sight comforting, considering all the rough times they’ve been really skint. He’s glad to see even limited plushness in a way he can’t quite explain. He doesn’t try, even drunk.

Freddie’s eyes catch on his name, written perfectly along the lower left of Roger’s hairline. _Freddie,_ it reads, like a masterpiece. He knows that nicknames is a rotten lot, but can’t help but think it makes them perfectly suited for each other.

Roger jerks impatiently like a fish on the line, and the flash of black at the base of his spine draws Freddie’s lazy attention.

His stomach drops, odd and funny, as he reads right on the small of his back, _Dom._

Something about the position of it, and the firm one syllable makes Freddie instantly think of a masculine hand covering the mark _e_.

He understands now why Roger never mentioned it before.

Why _which one are you?_ was his question when they met.

Because both names seem male.

_Dom_ and _Freddie._ With something like nicknames, there’s no real telling if it’s actually two blokes, Freddie reasons to himself the next morning over tea. Roger is none the wiser to his sudden knowledge. He scoots around the apartment like a dehydrated ghost, no different than usual after a party.

In polite language, people with two same-sex names are called “double-bests” for having two best friends. That’s the modest denial typical of the British. There are other phrases; f****t comes to mind, as do a few unutterable phrases Freddie’s cousins taught him in Gujarati. It’s not illegal in Britain, but there’s a proper way to do it.

Double-bests happen to people without an aberration, but, coupled with his existing mutation, not to mention his soft face and big eyes… Freddie suspects Roger’s lived under this gun for quite a long time. People making the same assumption as Freddie’s gut reaction.

If there’s anyone he shouldn’t have to worry about, it’s his best mate. Which Freddie is. No matter what.

Besides, he thinks, watching Roger grin lazily at a girl in the bar, it’s not like Roger’s ever hinted about blokes. If anything, women flock to him, a steady trickle of easy, fun lays like spring rain. That’s without even mentioning his steady relationship with Jo Morris. If she’s matched with someone who has nicknames like Roger, she must be giving them quite the turn. Freddie wonders if she eases some of his worries.

Despite Roger’s frank prettiness, he isn’t really that camp. In fact, Freddie rather has the corner on that market. Roger is laddish, for all his interest in appearance and indulgence of Freddie’s whims. All these facts must equal something straight and un-embarrassing when added together.

Freddie raises his glass when Roger winks, hand around the waist of a redhead. He tries not to think about how Roger won’t take off his shirt during the act, leaving it on and unbuttoned to reveal only what he can stomach.

Freddie doesn’t mean to mention it, but there’s only so much the drunken mind can keep to itself.

They’re collapsed against one another after a round of celebratory drinks. They sold a surplus this week and splurged on steak dinners and booze. Tired from actually being full for once, they returned home instead of pursuing the night to its usual conclusion. After topping off with whiskey, they shuffled to their bed to giggle over nothing and pontificate on the genius of Jimi Hendrix.

Freddie’s voice wavers on the fine point of _Hey Joe_ when Roger’s fingers trace the edge of the script on his arm.

“ ‘S this Mary?” he drawls. Freddie swallows hard at the sharp, teeming sensation of Roger’s hand on his mark _e._ Their preternatural awareness of the other has become scenery, but the touch of his hand brings it startling to the foreground in a gripping way that has Freddie kneading the sheets.

“No, that’s your name, daft boy.”

Roger frowns. “It’s pretty.”

“It’s Gujarati, of course it’s pretty.” Freddie falls quiet. He never really means to speak about where he’s from.

“Your first language?” Roger asks, though it’s obvious considering its presence in his mark _e._

“I barely remember how to speak it. I really only need it to read Roger and Mary, don’t I?” he lies. Roger squints knowingly, but doesn’t call him on it in that beautiful way Freddie can always trust him to.

“Mary’s even more beautiful,” Freddie says.

“I wanna see.”

Freddie lifts his shirt and just shimmies down his pants. His bony hip presses out into the dim light of their lamp.

Something like sympathy or pain settles in Freddie’s gut as Roger looks at the mark _e_ and strokes it like a promise. His eyes hold too much hope for what this mark _e_ means for the both of them that Freddie aches. He remembers the precariousness of his schoolboy days, the blurred lines between helping another lad pull off, how much enjoyment was actually proper, and what Elvis had to do with anything anyway.

“I bet it’s Dominique,” he says, and instantly regrets it for the way Roger’s brow draws together, dark clouds gathering.

They’re quiet for a moment. Freddie wonders if they can pretend he didn’t say it. He would like that.

“Of course it’s a girl’s name,” Roger blusters. “Even if it is positioned like…”

Freddie nods, suddenly hating himself for his own instinctual reaction. Everyone’s told that double-bests get the skewed mark _e_ in embarrassing and telling places; further punishment for their deviancy. But then Freddie’s also heard since coming to London that it’s just rumors from the right wing. He’s a convert now.

“Placement’s irrelevant,” Freddie says, “Propaganda is what that is. And it’s not that odd of a spot.”

Still unsettled, Roger murmurs “I’m not…”

“Of course not,” Freddie agrees.

Roger stays quiet, index finger still brushing the edges of Mary’s name. Freddie supposes that’s as much as they’ll talk about the subject. He plans to thread in a comment about Hendrix, when Roger speaks again, voice small.

“I thought maybe it could be a Freda, or Frederica, or maybe even a Winifred.”

Freddie startles, feels twisty inside at the admission.

“That was my mum’s name, you know. Winifred,” Roger says. “People used to call her Freddie as a girl.”

“Are you disappointed?” Freddie mumbles, and feels stupid because it’s obvious he is—

“Never,” Roger avers. “Couldn’t be. You’re my best mate.”

It’s simple and obvious, but still fills Freddie to the glowy core of himself. God, what did he do before Roger was there bolstering him up? He wishes he could pass the feeling along to Roger in the thoughtless flow of emotions drifting between them, but Roger’s too preoccupied, now melancholy and not a little bit drunk.

“Did you know Dominique’s a bloke’s name too, in France? And there’s Dominic, and Domenico, and all the other versions.”

Freddie brushes these away, still brimming with Roger’s casual affection. “Oh, it could be a middle name! Those are anything, Latin saints and all.”

“Right…”

“You know,” Freddie starts, biting his lip. “I’ve heard about girls who do wicked things to men. Dominatrixes. Maybe you find a sweet lady willing to tie you up and fall so hard you only call her Dom, utterly demure.”

Roger cracks a smile. “I’d much rather do the tying up.”

“Perhaps you’ll share! Matching mark _e_ s. Rope enough for two.”

That has Roger laughing finally, and that, as much as his earlier kind words, fill Freddie to the brim with pleasure.

“Sounds more like a hangman,” he muses.

“I shouldn’t worry your head one jot about it,” Freddie says decisively. “You said you’re not, so it’s got to be a girl, hasn’t it?”

Roger hums, thoughtful, a little hopeful. Freddie knows the shadows aren’t banished, merely casting themselves further away, thinning for a brief moment. He snuggles up against Roger for comfort. His unshaved jaw scrapes the softness of Roger’s chest as he swallows and pets Freddie’s hair for a moment.

Long after the lights go off, Freddie hears a hoarse, “Thanks Fred.”

He meets Mary over a rack of velvet trousers in the Biba department store.

Freddie stares in open-mouthed amazement at her sculpted eyebrows and the beautiful way her blonde hair wafts up around the crown of her head before falling down. She’s stunning, and her eyes soak him in with a shy pleasure that he can’t help but lean into. Warm like hot earth.

Brian, unaware, continues. “Are you all set for the gig? …Mary?”

“Mary,” Freddie utters, complete with meaning, watching the word shiver up her body.

“Oh, fucking hell,” Brian mutters. “She was my girlfriend.”

Roger chuckles. “You’ll survive.”

Freddie tears his eyes away to share this with the one person who can appreciate it equally. Roger stares back, eyes gleaming.

“Uhm, so you’re… erm, Farrokh?" She rather mangles it

“Call me Freddie,” he corrects. “I’m Freddie.”

“Mary,” she sighs.

“I know,” he says, giddy.

“Jesus,” Brian groans.

Roger laughs again.

Freddie is among the lucky few to find his matches before he’s even hit his mid-twenties. The vague uncertainty that’s pursued him through his teenage years settles. Fame and whatever else can only fall at his feet, with how elated he feels. He’s not the only one to notice his extraordinary luck.

“How’d you get two of the most gorgeous people for your matches?” Chris grumbles during one of their writing sessions. “You must’ve healed the blind in a past life to deserve that.”

Freddie quite agrees. In fact, sometimes he can hardly believe his good fortune, or how slanted the scales seem towards him—

“Well, like has to suit like, doesn’t it?” Freddie declares, his assurance stripping Chris of his doubt, and in that moment, Freddie as well. He’s going to be a star; he can feel it. He’ll make them weep diamonds for being bound to him.

“No… not a star,” he says to a startled Chris. “I will be a legend!”

His fated success becomes utterly apparent when Tim Staffell leaves Smile the very week after Sour Milk Seas dissolves. There’s a faint skip to his step as he sidles up to Brian and Roger, slumped against the pub chairs, desolate.

It doesn’t take much to convince them.

“Although you hardly deserve my generosity,” Freddie buzzes. “After your wretched review of my talents.”

Roger blearily _baas_ at him.

“I should join another band for that.” 

They both know he won’t.

“I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with being in a band with two mates,” Brian admits, halfway down his fourth drink. “It skuus… skews the power dynamic.”

Roger’s getting the next round, staring moonily at the brunette behind the bar.

“Brian, darling,” Freddie starts, slamming his hand down perhaps too forcefully in his drunken determination. “Just because I share an emotional core with that little snot does not mean I understand half the nonsense that flies through his mind. It’s not natural to feel the things he does when he sees cars. The stomach turns.”

Brian snorts into his drink and is still griping about carbonation up his nose by the time Roger returns with the next round.

“What we need is, what we need is,” Freddie rambles.

“Tits,” Roger finishes, sending Freddie giggling.

“We need a bassist.” Brian corrects.

“A bassist with tits!” Roger crows.

“That’s a band dynamic I would not stand for,” Brian declares. “No fucking the band. No band fucking.”

“Fuck,” Roger giggles.

“What we need is a new name!” Freddie says, over them.

“What’s wrong with Smile?” Brian asks, sour.

“We’re not changing it,” Roger says. “We have a fanbase and all the bookers know us by Smile now!”

“We’re changing it,” Freddie promises.

“We’re not.”

He tries again, two days later.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about this whole name changing business,” Freddie starts, strolling into the living room where Roger flips through a fashion mag on a disused mattress.

“Oh? Is this the part where you tell me Brian’s already agreed to change it?” he asks, turning a page.

“Certainly not. It’s democratic.” Freddie sniffs, if only because they already know his old tricks.

Roger grins and closes the book. “Good, because Brian and I have a few ideas ourselves.”

Freddie tries not to recoil in horror as _Grand Dance_ and _Build Your Own Boat_ are offered for consideration at the next band meeting. Some of his disdain must show in his expression, because Brian glares at him from across the table.

“And what’s your idea then?”

Roger’s expression furrows as he senses the building wave of surety and adoration as Freddie utters, “Queen.”

“Oh, fuck,” Roger cusses. His knee jerk reaction can only be because he knows Freddie will get his way in the end, even as he starts his opening arguments against the name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .  
> .  
> .  
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> Hello! This is my first entry into the Queen fandom, I hope it's up to snuff! If you can find areas I might improve I'd love to know👀❣️
> 
> This fic is complete and the next chapter will be up in a week or so after editing.
> 
> Leave a comment if you like~❣️❣️❣️


	2. the ocean's sound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _For the first time, a pang of fear pierces the veil of giddiness Freddie’s wrapped around himself like a protective ward. He banishes it from his thoughts, but it lingers, festers— the unnamable knowing that something is not quite right._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A million thanks for my lovely, darling beta [johnjie](https://johnjie.tumblr.com/)❣️
> 
> **Tags updated, please check!**

+  
“What do you think of this, Rog?” Freddie asked, leaning over to point at the picture in _Harper’s and Queen._

Roger squints at the image Freddie spreads over his biology book. “Rubbish. Look at that, just seems like a carpet walked onto somebody.”

“Or they’re really very untrimmed,” Freddie suggests and Roger chuckles, knocking his trainers into Freddie’s boots under the table.

Brian makes an irritated sound and erases a line of his notes. “I’ve written untrimmed now. Can those of us who aren’t studying keep it to whispers, please?”

“I am studying,” Roger protests, pencil nib grinding into the outline of an appendix he’s been tracing for five minutes. It snaps and he sighs.

Roger blinks at the pencil extended from John, still bent over his own calculations. Grey eyes slip up and then back to his work in a movement so fast Freddie thinks he’s imagined it. Still reserved, their John.

“Thanks, Deaks.” Roger smiles. “I’ll buy you a drink sometime.”

“You haven’t got the money,” John replies, the beginnings of amusement on his face.

Roger spins the pencil and starts drumming the corner of their table at the Star Café, his eyes roaming and leg juddering. _Frantic_ comes to Freddie’s mind, something said by Mott’s pianist when he saw them play. _You’re awfully frantic, aren’t you?_

Freddie is twenty-five now, nearly twenty-six. They’re only now getting a record company to back their production of an album. God, he hopes they don’t go splat. This album has to do something for them or Freddie is quite sure he’ll go out of his mind. What was all of this for if not? Such a tantalizing whiff must be illegal.

Roger’s tempo falters and he squints at Freddie. “We are a bloody good band,” he says, apropos of nothing.

John stops writing, but Brian keeps his head ducked. “Pay it no mind,” he mutters.

Sod them. They don’t know about Roger’s certainty, how bloody good it feels to say, “Of course we fucking are!” and earn his grin. Right. Freddie can save his mawkish thoughts for his songwriting.

“I think it’s time.” John points to the clock at the café, ringing a pretty eleven pm for them to start their three-hour session.

At the wedding, Freddie, Mary, and Roger throw fistfuls of rice at Kashmira and Roger. A Roger _Cooke_ of all things.

“Kashmira Cooke. That’s really just too much alliteration,” Freddie nitpicks at the reception. “Now you’ve quite ruined the whole thing!”

“Freddie.” Kashmira smiles, indulgent. “Not everything comes together like it says in poetry and opera.” Freddie sniffs, wondering when his little sister grew so wise.

“I meant your choice about the taffeta,” Freddie lies, but lets her brace him in a tight side-hug anyways.

“You can have your brocade gown when you and Mary get married,” Kashmira says. “Assuming you win the fight over who gets to wear it.” 

Freddie grins to hide the sudden uneasiness rocking his stomach.

Freddie never really mused much on the distinction in feeling about one’s soulmate and one’s best mate. Before having either, he couldn’t fathom the way they felt to him, like piano wires thrumming beneath his fingers no matter the distance, playing a tune of emotion without artifice for his ears only. It’s the core of them, humming and singing on the edges of his mind. Music that flows back and forth between them.

Even all of Shakespeare’s poetry, the awful movies, the intrepid clichés didn’t prepare him for this wealth of emotions.

Despite that, there are distinctions somehow.

Mary is the core of safety, a warm nest of feeling. She’s quiet, like the part of Freddie he’s been trying to forget. She draws it out, teaches him the value in its softness, the way they can whisper together near silently and keep the rest of the world out.

She cares for him, indulges him, and is a steady beat at his side.

Roger is a wilder energy, the rapid pace of rhapsody in blue. His energy plays triplets and spurs Freddie higher, making him branch and spiral in a million different directions. Places he wasn’t sure he could go, but now lingers in with growing ease and assurance.

In the same way as Mary, it feels like Roger and Freddie can sequester themselves from the rest of the world, the rest of the band, and giggle together. A private but loud bubble.

Freddie has moved away from Roger and the rest, into a modest bedsit with Mary. A piano is their headboard, as scraped together as the rest of the apartment, but lovely in its way. He can’t wait for the day he can decorate the flat with Japanese silks and vases and a million gilded gifts. For now, he makes do with the pretty kimono gifted to him, the origami cranes and small toys.

Living with Mary settles into something easy, familiar.

He doesn’t know why he expected it to be different somehow. Edgier, more exciting? The first time they sleep together, Freddie fumbles his hands over her breasts, leans into the way that she clutches around him, panting and shoving herself ever closer. He watches her dissolve into pleasure like candy floss on the tongue, but it feels distant, like listening to a train leaving another track. Missing each other, somehow. After the perils of merely watching Roger, he thought it would be different. An undoing, a peak of utter united pleasure, and he doesn’t know what to do as with each subsequent time it isn’t.

It’s just nerves, he tells himself. Mary doesn’t seem bothered by the un-atmospheric heights they reach. She sighs, brushes her hand over his stomach and drifts off with a smile. Her face is so smooth on his skin, he thinks unsettled. Freddie peers down at the other male name on the back of her shoulder.

For the first time, a pang of fear pierces the veil of giddiness he’s wrapped around himself like a protective ward. He banishes it from his thoughts, but it lingers, festers— the unnamable knowing that something is not quite right.

The shape takes form a year or so later when Freddie meets David Minns at a meeting arranged by Elton John. He’s always gotten on with gay men in a way he’s never really had the heart to investigate further than a shared appreciation for theatre, and theatrics of all colors.

David puts a word to it in a way that his previous shady fumbling with men hadn’t. It’s in the warm curl of his mouth, the stretch of broad shoulders. _Open desire._ The river runs both ways; he sees David’s eyes beneath thick dark brows flicker up and down Freddie’s lithe bend. It’s as shivery and awful as it is wonderful. More awful, but better still is the way David lets him inch closer, touch his shoulders as he tugs chidingly at a coat choice, brush his hips as they walk.

Dazzling, Freddie thinks, this nearness. It’s something he’s only ever shared with Mary and Roger—

He swallows down his suspicion. He swallows down what this might mean.

Freddie puts up a token effort, but in the end he also swallows the whole of what David has to teach him. It’s strange, having sex with someone who isn’t a match. It almost feels anonymous, the way his pleasure is known only to him, and not shared with passing trains or goggling up the side of a cliff together. Freddie can be himself, can be selfish or giving when the mood takes him. It doesn’t have to be dizzying to be good. And Freddie reaps more from this experience than he thought he might.

Cheating is a sour taste, though. He knows it from the first instance, and the second, and the third, and ever after. It’s not one mistake; it’s a series of deliberate choices and misdirections that repeat themselves almost without effort on his part. They feed into one another until what starts out as unpalatable becomes as unthought as breakfast.

Japan is like finally looking into a room they’ve only seen snatches of through the keyhole. The audience moves with them, knows their lyrics despite the language barrier, and receives every planned flaunt Freddie has with adulation. Before this point he didn’t know the potential of a real audience, not like he does now. He wants to whip them into further fervor, spike the mood higher and he reaches out during the long pause in Liar. Roger raps away in the background, keeping their momentum and Freddie keeps him there with a mere thought. On the stage they move as one, like a doubletrack vocal. Roger’s emotional music coalesces with their playing until Freddie understands the meaning of _Harmonices Mundi_ for the length of their sets.

It makes him brave. “I’m going to teach you a little English, is that alright? English, I’ll teach,” he says. The audience shrieks and Freddie bares his teeth.

“Now this first phrase is ‘shag out.’ Can you say it? Shag out!” They repeat it once, twice, and Freddie spins, giddy at being talked back to. After years of shouting and singing into a seeming abyss, the audience finally hears, and they tell him so.

God. It overwhelms him a moment, this sudden rush of visibility. Roger picks up an additional beat to his backing track, and Freddie turns to face him, watches Roger panting and his arms working, slick with sweat and humidity. His eyes glow with effort and dizzy exhilaration, they flicker to Freddie, seeing him fully as they often do, even when he isn’t lit with full spotlight. 

Freddie smolders, sings. “Mama, I’m gonna be your slave.”

Freddie wants...

John Deacon makes Freddie sick with jealousy sometimes. With only one name, John’s best friend and love are one and the same person. A satisfyingly uncomplicated _Veronica_ is cut into the arch of his foot.

“He would have asked Ronnie to be his best man if he weren’t already marrying her,” Roger joked on the wedding day. Freddie laughed then, but doesn’t feel like laughing now.

John plays the Wurlitzer and sings the way only someone with one name could of love, saying _You’re My Best Friend_. Freddie’s eyes flicker over to Roger. His assumed best friend, but with what Freddie’s learned about himself in the corners of David’s apartments, with what he can now connect about himself in boarding school, with what Elvis actually has always meant—

Roger looks at him and Freddie looks away. He can’t stomach being understood, not right now.

“Is it, er… What do you think?” John mumbles. So unflappable in everything else, writing shows the shy, vulnerable side of John’s heart.

“It’s lovely, darling,” Freddie says, stuffing his expression away.

John blushes, looks down. “Oh. I thought maybe you didn’t. Your expression was a little...”

“Like you smelt something foul,” Brian supplies.

“It’s that damn electric piano!” Freddie blusters. “Nothing doing there. You must let me try it on the proper grand. It’ll be just beautiful!”

“Cause what we need is more ballads,” Roger gripes. Heads turn to where he’s squinting at the lyrics sheet. “And what’s this toss about being happy at home? We’re a bloody rock group!”

“Well, some of us are,” Brian shoots back and gestures to John, and Freddie as well. Freddie can only quirk a smile, thinking of the pale lies that coat the apartment he shares with Mary. He thinks about how he had been happy, crashing beside Roger. Maybe Roger used to be happy at home too, when he had Freddie to steady him and balance the bed.

Their eyes glance off each other, the feed of emotions clashing and dispelling into nothingness. Too tangled to communicate.

Roger groans. “We’re not running a women’s institute!”

“No, we’re singing my song. So if I want the line, you’ll sing it,” John says with the kind of quiet, cutting bravery that leaves all of them stunned. Roger snaps from it first, throwing his sticks against the carpet and stalking off.

Freddie stares after him. He remembers the first night, after a trembling exchange with David. His hands chapped from washing them too much. He’d expected Mary to be angry with him. He’d expected her to know the way that all soulmates are in some way bound to. But she didn’t stir as he joined her for late coffee, only smiled.

Freddie senses that Roger knows, that he feels the same vague itch that has beset Freddie during all and sundry of Roger’s innumerable hook-ups. He watches him in the hallway, irritation lacing up and down his skin. His hands bring the cigarette up to his lips, the flame casting light over his features, still beautiful, still the stuff of Freddie’s dreams, and Freddie shudders in horror for what he knows and what Roger doesn’t yet understand.

Such unsettling and disturbing things don’t sit well with Freddie, never have. He can’t linger with them. They find their way through his hands and into a piano one way or another. A maelstrom of emotions within him, the breadth evoking a rock and opera epic that grows the more he gives it form. It’s an unwieldy rose that cuts his hand, demands more work, more layers, more majesty as it blooms in transplanted soil.

Bohemian Rhapsody is worth it; everything Freddie puts his time and love into is. They listen to the final playback of it, marvelling at the mess and glory. The song escapes definition and labels as so much of what Freddie feels and wants does.

They celebrate with drinks, champagne being the only thing to suit something of this level.

“What’s it mean, anyway?” John asks. It’s unusual to wonder about the meanings of songs, but Freddie also knows with a keen pleasure that there’s never been one like this before.

“You know, I’m sure.” Freddie demurs. Roger laughs.

“Well, it must be about _something,_ ” Brian reasons.

“Exactly right, my dear,” Freddie says.

Brian rolls his eyes. “Come on Rog, you must know, as his best mate. Share with the rest of us?”

Blue eyes flicker to Freddie, the half-conscious tugging on this live-wire between them and it’s like looking up the cliff face, the craggy side of all of Freddie’s desires, his loathing, his freedom. Like falling, knowing Roger was as easy as falling. Watching Roger orgasm was like an ocean opening to swallow him. It has never been Mary, has always been—

A glass shatters somewhere behind the bar. Roger looks away, hands shaking as he puts them beneath the table.

“Weren’t you listening?” Roger demands. “His mama just killed a man!”

The moment, like the unasked fact of living together, slips away.

Later that night, Freddie thinks to finish the job. He’s had nearly an entire bottle of champagne to himself and he’s the fizzy type of drunk that dares. It’s so easy to wrap his arm around Roger’s shoulders, easy to slip into Roger’s room and forget about his own. Sharing a bed is nothing new and Roger doesn’t even comment, only strips his chambray shirt off and into a corner. _Dom_ rings in Freddie’s mind. No one knows him the way Freddie does, not even this _Dom,_ and Roger’s thoughtless exposure of himself makes Freddie tremble eagerly as he gets onto the bed.

“You know,” he starts, slurring. “I love that you have nicknames.”

Roger frowns. “I don’t.”

“I do, because it’s the only name I use anyway. I never have to see my birth name on your skin.”

Roger doesn’t respond, merely turns onto the bed.

“They make people uncomfortable, nicknames,” Roger says. His tone is quiet, almost rote.

“They shouldn’t,” Freddie says. His knuckles brush against Roger’s spine for only a moment before Roger whips around to stare at him.

“But they do. It makes people uncomfortable not knowing if you’re…” His eyes are wet, and not with mirth as Freddie has seen them so many times. Wet with something undiscussed, but dark. The shadows, hanging darker over him. Emotions so tangled and awful that Freddie has to swallow past a sudden lump in his throat. For all the sunniness, there is a morass lurking in Roger. An untold history tangled with love, loathing, and a helpless sort of anger wreathing pure _hurt._ This is the first time Freddie’s had a close look, and he can’t stomach it.

He finds himself saying, “I know you’re not.”

Roger shudders, wipes his eyes with his wrists. “There’s nothing wrong with it, of course,” Roger says, voice gruff and stubborn, drunk eyes looking at Freddie with a knowing he wouldn’t dare show sober.

Freddie’s body goes cold, and he’s wrenching himself up and out of bed. It’s all wrong, the way he’s saying it, like it’s only Freddie, and what if it is? This was a mistake. He’s crossing wires, telling lies with his music, whatever Roger thinks is _wrong—_

A hand shoots out and encircles his wrist.

“Don’t go.” Roger shivers on the bed. He’s exposed for all and sundry, his layers accidentally and thoughtlessly pulled back by Freddie, who was too wrapped up in his own want to anticipate Roger’s pain.

Freddie’s fortress drops and he lets Roger pull him closer, climbing back into bed.

“I don’t care what’s happening with you and Mary, if it’s a mismatch or whatever—”

“It’s not…” Freddie fails to add more, his mind boggling at Roger’s capacity for misunderstanding.

“My parents were, but their best mates were all right. So just don’t leave me,” Roger demands. “We’re… We’re the real thing, aren’t we?”

“We are,” Freddie agrees, heart aching. More than Roger knows. “Go to sleep. I’m not going anywhere.”

At length, Roger does, with Freddie’s arm pulled into his chest. Their bond thrums from Roger’s side, a feeling of safety and a love that doesn’t stretch the landscape Freddie desperately wants it to cover. It’s what Roger gives him though, so Freddie basks in it. He hopes it will stave off unpleasant dreams, whatever thorny bracken in his past that Freddie has glanced at.

Trapped once more with his own thoughts, Freddie’s mind turns over the matter.

Mary is his best friend, which makes Roger…

Acknowledging it is easier than he thought. A sigh draws from his lips as it fits neatly into place in his mind.

Roger is his soul mate. His emotional complement, his equal in ambition, humor, and sexual hunger. In all these knobby, unattractive places, they somehow mesh. He wants to laugh with Roger, and create with him, and curl up in a million different beds. He wants to teach Roger the tender and the rough of loving another man. He wants Roger’s smile to turn every time they meet, feel it in him fresh like the first. He wants it all with him, to climb up every cliff together.

As soulmates.

Freddie knows one way or another Roger will come to realize this. Freddie should tell him... Still, whatever hang-ups Roger has, the dark corners of his past, Freddie feels ill-equipped to deal with them. To puncture Roger’s balloon, watch the false-safety escape with the air and deal with Roger’s raw anger and sadness is not something Freddie feels capable of.

Perhaps he’ll let the discovery happen naturally. Whenever he meets that Dominic, as Freddie supposes it now must be, Freddie will be there to pick up the pieces. He’ll be gentle as Roger finally divines what lies between them has always surpassed mere friendship, will teach him to be unafraid when reaching for a man.

With patience, Freddie trusts it will all come together.

It’s hard not to believe when he stands huddled over the microphone, watching Roger pull kazoos and trumpets from his mouth at Freddie’s behest. He loves that he can pull Roger away from his concerns about appearance, about being “rock enough” and into Freddie’s realm of camp and good fun. Roger blossoms there, making penny whistle sounds and clattering with his shirt buttons for a tap dance solo before hitting on the idea of thimbles. A brightly colored world of their own making, less Brighton rock, more Brighton Pier. Roger’s wary of optics, how they come off. But he’d called Freddie brave before and maybe this is what Freddie has to offer ( _alongside his love, his devotion, his self—)_ is a place for Roger to explore himself. A safe place.

(He tries not to think about Roger’s admitting his parents were a mismatch, how he must have been a symbol of it, with nicknames and two masculine sounding ones at that. How a grown man might break from being confronted with it in his own house. …How the undeserving always pay for other people’s crimes.)

_Love of My Life_ is for Mary. The words and passages flow out of him with her face in mind, the crinkle of her smile. It’s as much a ballad as a farewell. Everything she meant to that younger him, every stable possibility he invested in her, he has to bade farewell to it all. He knows hope lies on the other side, but this was his first, his deepest. Still, he must puncture this quiet bubble of theirs. Longing and sweet, the perfect song for a love that isn’t what he thought but will always matter. After all, she is and will always be his match and best friend.

To tell her… he doesn’t have the strength for that either. He continues living with her, seeking abidance under her protection for just a little longer. It’s nice while it lasts, not being looked at sideways. David and he meet on free weekends, a member of his odd entourage that only Roger looks at twice.

Roger… Freddie looks at Roger more than twice. Though his previous plans and hopes (fantastic as they might have been) are shattered, he starts to paste together a new future from the remains. One with plenty of cats and perhaps more garage space than he finds aesthetically appealing. A bed they share together. A future with Roger. 

Freddie has control of his patience. He will not falter.

His patience is dearly tested some days, despite the abundance of his love.

“Roger, are you coming out of the closet?” John asks. He’s the only one still tepid after an hour of waiting for Roger to put an end to his drama. And when Freddie’s thinking the drama’s overblown, things have gotten rather dire.

“Let’s just lock up and leave him to rot for the night!” Brian declares, throwing his hands up. “You’re being a fucking child!” he curses, not for the first time.

Freddie has forced himself to the couch as he sips on a tea. He could be rapping on the door like John or cussing like Brian, but he has a feeling Roger knows exactly how deep his ire sits at the moment. This is not cute, not in the slightest.

Freddie’s masterpiece is just that and it deserves to only have the best on the B-side, not the kind of gear-head trash that even has Freddie looking dubiously at Roger. Freddie doesn’t have a car, doesn’t drive, and certainly that is enough of a reason _I’m in Love with My Car_ shouldn’t represent the other side of _Bohemian Rhapsody._ There needs to be some symmetry, some kind of rich dichotomy.

John sighs, something firm in his slate-colored eyes as he stands and takes Brian gently by the forearm. “Let’s get some air, Bri.”

“I don’t need air, I need democracy in this band!” Brian grouses as he’s shoved out. John looks to Freddie and jerks his head to the closet.

God. Freddie jerks his hands out askance, _what is he supposed to do?_ and then hisses as tea slips down his fingers. He leans to the side to prevent it from landing on his immaculate white chiffon sleeve. He tries to shake his head, but John has already slipped out, the door shutting behind him and Brian.

Right, the match’s honor. Freddie, wet-fingered and ill-tempered, goes and sits delicately before the door.

“Roger.” He raps on the wood.

“Have you come to give me the B-side?” Roger’s voice is raspier than usual. The consequences of locking oneself in the closet for an hour after a screaming row.

“Not at all.”

“Then fuck off.”

His irritation rears and he’s glad at the sudden quiet that takes Roger. He doesn’t _like_ fighting with Roger, not with someone this immovable. Frankly, Freddie would rather be done with it, but he can’t justify that song as a single even to save himself a headache.

He appeals. “Look, you stubborn goat, give me one good reason your song should be the B-side.”

“It’s a strong song—”

“It’s a filthy song about a filthy machine written by a filthy man.”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t a good song,” Roger mumbles from behind the wood, lacking a counterpoint.

Freddie sighs, turns to lean back against the wood. “It’s not quite Bohemian Rhapsody, is it?”

“Nothing is!” Roger rebuts and Freddie can’t help but beam. “Nothing will be, you canny sod. Look, Freddie, the financial dynamics are tilted like this! John and I have been shifted from getting any real sales rights. Now he’s getting his single. I deserve mine too, don’t I?” Freddie shuffles, admitting that perhaps Roger’s pocket had been just that bit less lined than his own and Brian’s. “Not just a drummer, am I?” Roger continues after a pause, and Freddie smiles.

“No, never that.” His emotions shift, breaking down into acceptance and the door clicks that very moment. “For the sake of band balance,” Freddie says, trying to stay logical. Roger just beams, pressing out into the room.

“Bloody whatever. I have my first single, let’s have a drink!”

Freddie can’t help but laugh along, accepting Roger’s hands around his waist, his giddy glee. His cheeks flush under Roger’s brief, smacking kiss near his jaw.

“I suppose there’s no harm,” Freddie muses, flustered. “Besides, we may as well flop together if this all falls apart.”

“You must be joking if you think we’re going anywhere!” Roger argues, like this album isn’t the make-or-breaking of their careers, like Freddie’s masterpiece might be the anchor that sinks them. He squeezes Freddie’s hip, as though reading his thoughts. “We’re not going anywhere.” His lips are saying the band, but his eyes promise something everlong between the two of them and Freddie smiles reluctantly, rides Roger’s wave of cocky assurance until it feels like his own.

“Oh, why not the champagne!” Freddie says. “Best drink it now before the Sheffield brothers come for it!”

(Later, when _Bohemian Rhapsody_ , and thus _I’m in Love with My Car_ by extension, goes on to become their best selling record and their coffers are filling, Brian curses them both to high heavens. Roger buys a mansion in Surrey with typical modesty, and if Freddie buys a Rolls Royce he will never personally drive, and makes the whole band load in there to sign the contract papers, well, that’s just how it is.

Roger raises a brow and flips his newly dyed hair and Freddie meets him head on, grins. A giggle starts between them, Freddie doesn’t know from whom, but soon they are both cackling over their pissing contest, elated by the fact that they have mansions and a Rolls-Royce and they’re rocking the car with their paroxysms.

“Jesus, you just enable each other, don’t you?” Brian rubs his forehead.)

Long games are not unfamiliar to Freddie, but to realize how unutterably wrong he’s been takes only a year.

It’s a good year, too. His masterpiece of mixed emotions stops people in the street, makes them listen harder and closer to something they can never understand and yet intrinsically grasp. They rock Japan again, and he watches Roger lower himself into the onsen with new eyes and fresh appreciation.

Roger and Jo dissolve somewhere along the way, coming to blows over consistent infidelity and touring. Somehow the ruddy bastard still keeps her as a friend. Their break only leaves more time for Roger to seek pleasure on their tours, letting groupies and done-up girls into his bed like one might welcome a cat for a night.

When they settle back in domestically to record their next album, Freddie is constantly fielding calls to _come over and have a drink, Metropolis_ or whatever old favorite _is on the telly._ In these moments, he looks between David on the bed and the receiver before making his excuses.

“You know how best mates are,” he apologises. What David does and doesn’t know, he’ll never say. He lets Freddie kiss him before turning in for a night cuddled against Roger, listening to him babble about technology and humankind.

Of all the concerts, Freddie feels the free show at Hyde Park is to be Queen’s crowning jewel.

Freddie is musing over the setlist and listening to Brian critique the lighting rig when Roger’s piano wire jumps. Like 108 hammers hitting it all at once. Freddie’s eyes snap towards him. It feels like a flashback, the way he blindly shoves past everyone in his way and into the conference room.

“Hey!” Brian mutters, rubbing his side as the door shuts.

John’s expression is more watchful. “You don’t think…”

Brian’s eyes light up. “Oh, well done. Let’s meet her! I never knew what his other name was, come to think of it…”

Freddie bites his lip, knows the serious shock that awaits all of them. Roger is buffeting there, stunned beyond words.

Freddie swallows, braces himself and opens the door.

A tall man stands inside, draped in a pressed, conservative suit that speaks of excess wealth and an easy upbringing. Freddie can’t help but think Roger must hate him already, but Roger isn’t looking at the man. In fact, it’s only now, as Roger’s emotions spin and twist and unfold into something a lot like pleasure, that Freddie sees the girl.

“Fred,” he says, gasping. “Fred, this is Dominique.”

Freddie’s stomach drops hard in his stomach, turning lead.

There, in slender, sharp-faced glory, is Dominique Beyrand.

And she is beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .  
> .  
> .  
> thank you so much for the support this far! I have been overwhelmed by the welcoming of this fandom. 😭❤️
> 
> The details about Freddie's exchange with the audience in Japan is true! And the concert in Kobe was actually the first time he did the call in response with an audience according to reports.
> 
> Also, I realized I made an error about the ending arc, I am in the process of rewriting it, but I can no longer promise the lenghtth of the story. The next chapter should still be up in a week. 
> 
> Wish me luck, and feel free to leave a comment if you want to ❣️❣️❣️

**Author's Note:**

> Stay well and consider bothering me on my Queen sideblog [TUMBLR](https://rock-it-tonight.tumblr.com/)


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